This is why paying an untested pitcher $15 million is like jumping out of an airplane with an untested parachute.

All you can do is hope nothing goes wrong. And if it does. . .

The Washington Nationals tried their best to protect Stephen Strasburg from harm. Oh, how they tried, handling him as if he were priceless crystal. In a dozen starts, he never went more than seven innings. He never threw more than 99 pitches.

A month ago, his shoulder hurt a little. Nothing serious, presumably. Just some inflammation. But he was on the disabled list faster than bees on a Popsicle.

Strasburg was to be their strike-throwing, out-inducing, crowd-drawing, franchise-reviving future, and they were taking no chances. He might as well been enclosed in Bubble Wrap.

But phenoms are humans, too, made of flesh and bones — and elbow ligaments, one of which is now torn.

So, Black Friday for the Nationals, when the word came. Not that bright of a day for baseball at large, either, for it is never good news when one of the hot tickets of a game is mentioned in the same sentence with the words "Tommy John surgery."

You didn't have the chance to see Strasburg pitch? Check back, probably, in 2012.

Strasburgmania lasted 75 days. From the sensational 14-strikeout debut against Pittsburgh on June 8 to this past Saturday night, when he grimaced as he threw a pitch in Philadelphia, and started shaking his right arm.

The final numbers are a 5-3 record, 92 strikeouts to go with only 17 walks. His fastball was dazzling, his curve extraordinary, his changeup devastating.

Some thought him already an All-Star. Some talked about him as if he were in Cooperstown at 22. But what was everybody's hurry? Bad things can happen in a hurry to pitcher, and one just did. His operative acronym went from ERA to MRI. He is done for a long time.

"Tommy John surgery isn't open heart surgery," Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said on ESPN 980 Friday in Washington. "There's no wake here."

But there must be questions.

Strasburg's professional career includes 11 games in the minor leagues and 12 in the majors, and he has already been on the disabled list twice and is now apparently headed for the operating room.

Bad luck, or a red flag? There is thought that Strasburg damaged his elbow on one pitch Saturday night.

And while the Nationals gingerly treated him like a carton of eggs, any regrets about not giving him a full year in the minors?

Strasburg could well come back better than ever. The game's history is full of Tommy John veterans who returned to win big, starting with Tommy John. The success rate is in the 90-percent range. But not everyone does.

So you wonder about that. You wonder about his delivery, about his motion, about the stress on his arm from the variety of pitches he uses. You wonder about everything, when greatness goes on early hiatus.

Baseball will miss him, especially the ticket departments. He was the hit show coming to town. Take the three-game series in Atlanta in late June. On the night he pitched, 42,889 came. The other two games drew 19.045 and 20.091.

Or the four-game series in Cincinnati in July. The four crowds in order were 21,243, 22,876, 37,868 ad 23,115. Guess which one he started?

Or the 10-game homestand for the Nationals in July. Average attendance the two Strasburg games: 36,968. The other eight games: 20,669.

This sort of things happens to pitchers, and maybe it goes no deeper than that. He's gone, he'll be back, hit the resume button. But the Nationals have to be nervous, don't they? Potential — no matter how vast — tends to look more fragile when in the hands of doctors.

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